The Wedding Banquet
After Lee's (Lily Gladstone, "Killers of the Flower Moon") second attempt to conceive with Angela (Kelly Marie Tran, "Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi") via IVF fails, they cannot afford another try. Then Min (Han Gi-Chan), whose grandmother Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-jung, "Minari") is threatening to bring him back to Korea, chooses the wrong time to propose to Chris (SNL's Bowen Yang), who rejects him, thinking he only wants to remain in Seattle. So Min proposes to Angela, offering her the money for a third IVF treatment, but when his grandmother arrives, their small civil ceremony turns into "The Wedding Banquet."
Laura's Review: B-
Cowriter (with Ang Lee's 1993 original's James Schamus)/director Andrew Ahn ("Fire Island") modernizes Ang Lee's film, but the result plays like the made-for-television version, two separate couples and two matriarchs leading the film into too many sitcom situations. The film's ensemble feels unbalanced, Gladstone giving the most organically humorous and genuinely poignant performance, while Oscar winner Youn appears to use the same facial expression followed by downcast eyes as a reaction to almost everything. Ahn's remake of "The Wedding Banquet" is light entertainment, but it doesn't stand up to the original.
For example, in order to make the dual couple wire crossing work, Chris must reject Min's proposal of marriage and it never really makes sense, just like Min's grandmother staging a banquet for her husband back in Korea saps the comedy out of it, the long-distance ruse turning it into a dour affair. Likewise, in a drunken moment, Angela backtracks on trying for a child, another bit of senseless stalling. A major plot twist is foreshadowed so obviously, it practically has a blinking neon arrow pointing to it. Angela's fraught relationship with her mother May (Joan Chen, "Didi"), who wins an award as an LGBTQ champion in the film's opening moments, is based on her perception that May is using her to draw attention to herself, a means of contrast to Min's grandmother who, in fact, is not so close-minded that she needs this example. A more modern joke about non-binary children lands
with a thud.
What does work are Schamus and Ahn's decision to make half of each couple, Angela and Chris, more emotionally closed than their partners, yet able to talk to each other. And Chris figures again when his own self doubts are eased by his younger cousin Kendall (Bobo Le) when she reassures him using his own treatment of her as an example, a lovely scene. Everyone's career path reflects their personality, Lee's gardening and social work establishing her as the film's earth mother while Angela's laboratory work with plastic eating worms demonstrates concern for the planet from a more scientific angle. A Chinese dragon makes a threefold appearance to amusing effect, Gladstone's reaction to its second the film's best tossed off quip.
Lee's modest home and the converted garage housing Chris and Min feel well live-in and economically realistic, Jay Wadley's ("Heart Eyes") gentle, unobtrusive score adding to the homey warmth. But while "A Wedding Banquet" has its share of comedy and earned sentiment, too often you can see its rigging.
Bleecker Street releases "The Wedding Banquet" in theaters on 4/18/2025.
